Tight Spot
by thirdmetaphor
Summary: When the Valkyrie's head goes missing, Orihara Izaya is forced to associate with his enemies to drag everything back into order.
1. Prologue

**Tight Spot**

Summary: When the Valkyrie's head goes missing, Ikebukuro is slowly thrown into chaos, and Orihara Izaya is forced to lower himself to the level of mere humans to drag everything back into order.

Warning: dark themes. Psychological thriller.

This fic was inspired by something from the LJ kink meme post.

Supremely short prologue:

* * *

Prologue

* * *

It was hard not to fall in love with it, if only a little.

Izaya reached forward to run his fingers against the smooth cheek of his treasure. It stared back unwaveringly, a perfect creature complete without a body. He watched as it blinked once, closing its lids for a brief second before opening them and allowing him to drown in their oblivion.

Humans were interesting but _this,_ thiswas a panacea. Beyond human. A_ valkyrie. _Proof that the improbable wasn't so impossible after all.

It had been plaguing his dreams recently. But this was a strange kind of love, almost like an exalted admiration. He wanted to _become _this creature, to take it over in every possible aspect, to own it inside out until every part of it belonged to him and _was _him, until he could claim its immortality and play every vein of Ikebukuro with his limitless sight.

The piercing light from the window forced him awake, and he sat up in bed.

.

In his office, Namie was twirling in her chair with a frown embedded into her features. When she saw him walk down the stairs, it deepened.

"Izaya. What did you do with it, and why'd it leave such a mess?" She asked, tapping her fingers against her arm.

He raised an eyebrow. "What did I do with _what_? Geez, stop being so loud in the morning."

She pointed wordlessly across the office to his desk, where the glass case that had held the head stood upright. Nerve-like cracks rippled across its surface, inching towards a smash at one end. The papers he'd left nearby were stained wet with the fluid that had sluiced out of it.

"Come on," Namie said with a hint of worry creeping into her voice. "Did you have it moved, or something?"

His breath caught in his throat when he realized that the Valkyrie's head was gone.


	2. Less than Human

Review, I love hearing from readers. Durarara! is a smaller fandom than what I usually write for, but I really love these characters.

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Less than Human

* * *

Masaomi Kida shuffled one foot lazily in the dirt behind Raira as he waited for Mikado and Anri. This was nice, this lull of normalcy that he'd missed for so long. Excitement was really overrated. Mikado's nervous smiles and Anri's soft voice were better than any of the thrills he'd ever dreamed of as a kid or achieved as a leader of a high school gang.

The paper note rested scrunched up in his pocket, and he wasn't going to look at it.

He wasn't going back.

Especially not now.

.

Within seconds of shrugging on his lab coat and opening the door, Shinra felt a switchblade against his throat, pressing against his jugular like with an almost careless intensity. He threw his hands up immediately and looked back at Izaya's smirk.

"I don't know what I did, but I'm pretty damn sorry!" He cried, closing his eyes as the metal glinted against his skin.

"Oh, play nice Shinra~" Izaya's tone was playful, but it came out sounding slightly pained. "All you need to do is give it back. And for both our sakes, I hope you haven't handed it off to Celty yet."

Shinra took a deep breath, before blinking in confusion. "Um, give _what _back?"

"The head. You took it. It could have only been you." He lowered the blade and stepped into the small apartment, closing the door behind him. It smelt like burnt rice, but he couldn't see any traces of black smoke inside.

"Wait… Celty's head?" Shinra followed him to the sitting room where he had helped himself onto the couch. "Listen, I didn't take anything, I swear."

Izaya's eyes narrowed slightly. "There weren't a lot of people who know that I had it. My suspect list is conveniently short." He watched as the doctor sat jerkily beside him, giving him a look of pure horror.

"Celty's head. You mean Celty's head is-"

"The _valkyrie's _head," he corrected. "That thing doesn't need a name, even if its body had taken one. It's still a monster, after all, but your efforts to humanize it are nevertheless fascinating."

Shinra's hands clenched. "Stop calling her that. Sure she's not human, but she's _better_."

"Ah, and that's where we differ. Nothing is better than human, Shinra. The Valkyrie is only remarkable in how closely it resembles humanity without actually being a human." Izaya shot back. "But I didn't come here to talk to you. I came to see Celty and her head."

There was a brief silence in the room, before Shinra's brows furrowed. "You asked for her yesterday. Don't you remember? She's on a transport right now, to Tokyo."

Izaya sat up quickly, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He clicked through every entry made during the previous day, holding it up to display the glowing screen. There were various anonymous calls, a few made to Mikado, one call to Mairu, and the rest were labeled 'Awa'.

"Well not _you _exactly," Shinra amended. "I got the call from Namie. She said you asked her to deliver the message, and she did pay Celty the down payment money from your account, so there seemed to be no harm in taking it. Your office number is untraceable, but do you wanna see the money for proof?"

Izaya froze.

It was strange, this prickling worry. After having everything go by chess-piece plan for years, he'd almost forgotten the sudden lurch that came with the unknown. It was uncomfortable. Most humans were used to things like this, but he'd avoided it for too long and now it crashed harshly against his every nerve.

"Shinra, I highly doubt that your monster girlfriend is anywhere near Tokyo."

He stood sharply and turned to leave. Before he could take a step, there was a hand curled around his arm, holding tightly.

"Listen, I don't care what you do to the head. But if Celty doesn't get back by the time she said she would, I'm not going to stay out of the way."

Izaya nodded, almost on instinct. Shinra had never sounded this serious.

Five minutes later, he was halfway back to his apartment. He needed to talk to Namie and Shiki. Namie's confusion at seeing the empty case had seemed real enough, but she was a good actress when she needed to be, and maybe it hadn't been completely secure to leave her in the same room as his treasure. He paused mid-step, bit his lower lip when he realized that he really _had _done something wrong, and now his chances of seeing Valhalla were slipping away by the hour.

And the back streets of Ikebukuro were quiet, strangely quiet, quiet like the life had been sucked out of the city.

He dodged the first one that came sailing at his head, and shot around with a smirk already playing on his lips, looking in the direction the knife had come from. They should know better than to mess with him, who'd gone toe-to-toe with Heiwajima Shizu-

But he didn't feel the second knife until it had already embedded itself in his leg.

.

His jacket was gone, and his cell phone had been in its pocket. That was the first thing Izaya noticed when he woke up with his cheek pressed to the stone floor of a familiar abandoned warehouse and the reek of fresh blood filling his nose.

"Who the fuck told you to open your eyes?" Someone grunted from nearby. He swiveled slightly, pushing against the floor for leverage until he could see a blurry figure slowly come into focus.

The man was completely unfamiliar. Izaya couldn't say the same about the blue bandanna he wore. Or the yellow cloth tied around his upper arm. He frowned and let his eyes scan over the rest of his surroundings, spotting two older girls beside him. One of them was sitting silently on a dusty concrete block, wiping off her knife.

The gleam of a gun barrel caught his eye, and he looked down sharply to where it was pressed against his throat.

"Leave him," one of the girls drawled. "You don't need to be so mean, we're not in a middle school gang anymore. This is real shit, Kuroda, and if he's not scared already, your gun isn't gonna help it along." She wore the same blue bandanna, and Izaya found himself scanning her for yellow. He gritted his teeth when he spotted a scarf around her leg.

The gun barrel receded from his neck. But the kick came out of nowhere, slamming into his stomach with the force of a freight train, leaving behind a dull throb of pain.

Izaya coughed twice while he recovered, and then lowered himself back to the floor to look up at them with a smirk. "What are you, some kind of hybrid gang? Where's Kida? I'll speak with him."

No one responded. Finally, the girl with the knife glanced at him. "We've been told that you wield your words better than we use our guns. You can blabber all you want, but no one here is going to listen until our employers arrive."

He frowned. They seemed serious about that. And the lightheadedness from his blood loss was beginning to catch up with him, seeping into his mind and slowly scraping away at his consciousness. Izaya peered over his body at where his leg was a bloody mess against the stone floor. He looked away quickly.

The Valkyrie's head. That was his priority. Not the sight of his leg, which was close to making him black out. Not this strange new addition of pawns moved by a player still unknown in the game.

But these _pawns _had guns, and that made them a temporary annoyance.

The lone ache in his stomach pulsed red as he turned and curled up into himself, shaking from blood loss, reaching one hand into the side waistband of his underwear. His fingers felt near his hip until they located his second cell phone, then drew it out.

From there, it was the agonizing process of skimming for a certain phone number long buried in his list of contacts while hiding the glow of the screen from his watchers, who had gone back to scouting outside the warehouse and waiting for whoever employed them. Once he was certain he had it, he pressed his fingers to call and placed the phone over his mouth. It rang faintly, once, twice, while he blinked the darkening spots of near-unconsciousness from his sight. Then a familiar voice filled his ear, asking who the hell he was.

"Hey… Shizu-chan," he spoke jerkily into the glass.

"Oi! He's talking to someone!"

"Wanna… come fight?"

"It's a phone, you idiots! He's got another one! I told you to strip him, dammit!"

"I'll be waiting at Kida's factory…"

The phone dropped from his grip as a foot crashed into the back of his neck.

* * *

Feedback?


	3. Behavioural Manipulation

Behavioural Manipulation

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"Alright, I'm not sure how much damage has already been done, but strip him and check for anything else."

The blinding pain faded slowly. Izaya blinked himself awake and glanced around at where there were people reaching down towards him. He took a breath, forced himself to stay still while they kicked his phone out of reach and tugged at his shirt and tied his hands behind his back.

"Ha, you guys must be the most insecure gang I've ever met," he taunted. "You need to strip a helpless prisoner? I don't have anything you haven't seen before under here." He cast a glance at the girl with a knife. "Well, I have something _she _hasn't seen."

The girl frowned. Someone took the liberty of tossing her his shirt, and she busied herself with cutting it into ribbons.

"Woah, hold on there," there was something metallic in his mouth, and he briefly wondered if they'd give him a concussion. The thought fled when Kuroda neatly cut off his pants, sending a line of fire through his injured leg. He checked the hidden pockets. Izaya gritted his teeth when he saw the man finger his ID card.

His leg burned.

But it would only take a few minutes longer.

"Hey, what do you think?" He smirked at the one that had pulled off his underwear and was examining the seam that had held his second phone. "I bet you thought I was scrawny all the way down, right? I tend to live beyond most people's expectations." Despite his words, he shifted his body away from them, and rationalized that he was trying to spare the girl with the knife. Some of them did still seem rather young, after all.

"Can we shut him up somehow?" One of the men around him questioned.

"Nope," knife-girl told him. "Because not one of you idiots remembered to bring tape."

"Ah, so you _say _you're no longer just a high school gang, but you're actually still amateurs," Izaya went on, feeling the chill of the warehouse brush over his form. "Little kids with yakuza dreams."

She made a commendable effort to keep herself from replying.

.

It was an undeniable fact that Russia Sushi was Ikebukuro's demilitarized zone. There was something safe about its general lack of customers and weird maki rolls that cemented the normalcy settling around their shoulders, and Kida felt safe there. He felt safe to spread a smile across his face and tease Anri about her boobs like he'd always done.

"…and we should totally head to the maid-café down the road next time," he teased.

"B-But maid-cafés are for boys…"

"Yeah, but they say if we bring along a cute girl, they'll dress her up in one of their uniforms!"

Mikado nudged him with an elbow. "Masaomi, maybe you should be a little more loyal to Saki. I don't think she'd appreciate it if you went leering after maid-girls." Anri supported him with a slight nod.

Kida waved him off. "Oi, oi, Saki's _my _kinda girl, you know. I let her watch all the yaoi-stuff she wants, and she lets me enjoy the beauty of Ikebukuro's moe culture!" he gulped down a piece of salmon maki and gagged at the sudden, overbearing flavor of mustard that accompanied it. Simon was getting creative.

"Um, about Saki, how are the Yellow Scarves doing? You never told us if you actually disbanded them," Anri said softly. "I was just curious."

Kida felt the smile drip off his face. "I'm not part of that anymore. I mean, I thought I'd stick around for the sake of my older friends, but they've taken it too far."

"Too far?" Mikado frowned. "What do you mean, Masaomi?"

There went his chance of forgetting. "I _told _them," he clenched his hands into fists at his sides. "I _told _them not to get involved with the adults, cause they'd chew us up and spit us out. But the idiots don't listen, and they're in big. And I don't want anything to do with it anymore." There was something broken in his voice that hinted at betrayal.

Anri reached over to take his hand and squeeze it comfortingly.

In her wrist, Saika pulsed with life.

.

"There's nothing else on him. Do you think we should dress him up again? They wouldn't like it if he froze to death."

Knife-girl blankly tossed over the shirt she'd cut to shreds, and let her eyes linger on him for the hell of it. Kuroda laughed brutally.

"Hey, my pants still look wearable," Izaya noted, glancing across at the cloth a few meters away. It wasn't that he particularly cared about his image, but the warehouse was cold and in the end, he'd rather not let Shizu-chan see him half-frozen. Relief crept into him as they ripped away the last of the hidden pockets in his pants and fitted them back onto his legs. But as they dragged the cloth over his injury, the wave of pain hit him once again.

"So I was right, then. You're a bunch of kids desperately trying to integrate yourselves among the ranks of adults. Listen, there are better ways to do something like this." He looked around at each one of them, noting the inexperience in their eyes. If they had only been less of them, he could have taken them by himself. "I'm sure you know a fair bit about me, and how I can help. Because right now you're just a group of wannabe-"

"Shut up!" A foot met his stomach, and his sight exploded with color. "I'm tired of your shit! Just stay quiet!"

"Hey, don't kill him or anything," knife-girl spoke up. But she made no move to stop him.

Izaya briefly noted that Kuroda had large feet. The kind of large feet that were rumored to belong to intelligent people, but were actually just found among stupid brutes like this guy, and like Shizu-chan. His thoughts drowned out the pain in his stomach.

Humans were interesting because they had no pattern. Every time he tried to assign a formula to their actions, they escaped it, became independent of his predictions. Of course, he had turned behavioral manipulation into an art form, but it still remained that large-scale activity held a certain chaos that fascinated him.

"Hey, are you done yet? He's blanking out."

But it was a priori obvious that there _was _a pattern. The only conclusion was that it was so incredibly complex that it would take him years, centuries to figure out. Now if only had a body like Celty's, something thoroughly independent of time…

"Yeah, you might want to stop. He's already loosing a lot of blood from his leg. That's gonna bruise badly."

He needed the Valkyrie's head. Izaya forced his eyes open, breathed heavily and waited.

When he heard the creak of the warehouse door opening, he smirked widely up at Kuroda, who was looking at his expression and probably deciding he was crazy. It looked like the smirk of someone too far gone.

But it was the smirk of a manipulator.

And Izaya grinned as the place fell into chaos.

.

When Heiwajima Shizuo knocked down the metal door, peered into the warehouse, took in the small group and the bloodied form lying in their midst, the only thing he could think was, _what the fuck_?

He wasn't sure exactly why he did it. Maybe it was the heat of the blood already pumping angrily through his veins at the thought of the louse's call. Or maybe it was the fact that they were all staring at him with that look of thorough hatred that he _hated, _all the people with the scarves and bandannas_. _Maybe that was why he attacked.

Shizuo wasn't sure why he did it, but a few seconds later their unconscious bodies were piled up against the far wall and he was walking slowly to the puddle on the floor. The human-shaped half-naked puddle that was pushing itself up and looking a hell of a lot like Orihara Izaya.

"What the hell?" He demanded, standing before him as Izaya stood unsteadily with his weight entirely on his right leg. "How are you gonna fight me like that?"

"Your stupidity never fails to impress me," Izaya said dryly, wiping his hands off shakily on his pants. "Take a hit if you want. I'm feeling rather desensitized right now."

Shizuo frowned. "There's no point if you _want _it. What happened here? Did someone take revenge on you?"

"Shizu-chan is so cruel~, automatically assuming that I did something wrong. What if I told you I have no idea who they are and who they work for?" That was a lie, he'd recognized some faces that had a good reason to hate him. But Shizu-chan didn't need to know that. "Feel like helping a good old enemy to fight another day?"

"Hell, I'll just drop you off at Shinra's, and hopefully he'll yell at you," Shizuo slipped one hand around Izaya's bare arm, half-dragging him out of the warehouse.

"No," he replied sternly, feeling the evening sunlight hit his chest. "No. I'll be fine, my leg bleeds a lot but it's only a graze, and the rest are just superficial. I just can't go back to my place for a while, so take me wherever you want. And bring me Masaomi Kida. I need to talk to that kid."

* * *

Please review. For some reason, my Izaya/Shizuo oneshot is getting far more views than this is. Does this fandom not like _plot_?


	4. Levels of Hatred

Levels of Hatred

* * *

"Stop walking so fast, my leg hurts. I'm not a monster like you. I feel pain."

"Shut up, louse."

"And where are we going, anyway?"

It was dark already, and Shizuo half-dragged him through the streets of Ikebukuro. They went through all the back-end alleys where only the fortissimo of the city could ever feel safe. His apartment was already kilometers away, but luckily, Shinra's was too.

Shizuo glanced at him uninterestedly. "I'm going to drop you off at one of the hotels, and they can do whatever they want with you. If you're lucky, I'll drop Celty a note to give to Kida."

Izaya frowned, and pulled them to a stop. "I can't go there. I have to stay hidden for a while, there's reason to believe that the Awakusu are after me. They'll have the yakuza scouting the city."

"Isn't that the group you work with?"

"Yeah. Bastards."

"Too bad. Have fun getting killed, Izaya-kun." A manic glint shone in Shizuo's eye. "Looks like the yakuza are good for pest control, at least."

The Awakusu were the largest and most influential underground organization in Ikebukuro, and they had access to events even faster than the news stations. If they put their effort forward, not even the best hiding spots the underworld could offer would be able to protect him.

There was only one place where he had a chance of staying safe.

"You know, Celty is the reason they're after me," he replied. "They took her and the Valkyie's head, and I'm not sure what they plan to do, but it might just awaken the war goddess in your old friend. I'm trying to rescue her."

Shizuo paused mid-step, and turned to look at him slowly. "Celty and her head are gone?"

He nodded. "It has something to do with the Awakusu, but I'm not going to risk going back to find out. Not when they clearly sent that group of scarf-squares after me. There's no one else that could have done that."

There had been a familiar face in that crowd. A face he thought he'd never see again. Aoba, leader of the former blue squares. Izaya had only glimpsed him for a second, but he wasn't in the habit of doubting himself.

"…Celty and her head are gone?" He repeated blankly. "What… what happened? Was it Shinra's fault? Did he tell his father about it? I swear I'll kill that bastard!"

"Listen, Shizu-chan, there are sometimes when I can sort of understand your blabber. This is not one of those times. Why would you think Shinra had anything to do with it? The idiot's blindly in love with her. No, there's a chance she in the same place as her head is right now. Maybe tied up. I know a few people who'd be glad to have an opportunity to experiment on an immortal."

Izaya sighed, waited for the outburst. It started slowly, and suddenly there was anger flaring up in Shizuo's eyes, practically burning holes into everything he looked at.

"Tell me where they are!" he roared. "Who am I supposed to kill to save Celty!? _Who, _dammit!?"

This was good. This, he could use. Izaya smiled slyly and laid a hand on Shizuo's arm, trying to repress his natural instinct to flinch away from his long-time enemy. "I don't know yet. I'm trying to find out. But I can't do that if they kill me."

"You… you're playing me, aren't you?" Shizuo growled.

"Yes. But only to save Celty. I have other uses for her. Will you let yourself be played? I think it's fair to say I'm skilled at the game, after all." He watched Shizuo's face and waited as the anger slowly seeped back into control. The brute was fascinating, sometimes. Just occasionally.

Shizuo thought for a long time, drumming his fingers against the arm of his bartender's suit, and around them the sky had already grown dim. Finally, he turned back, and wordlessly grabbed Izaya around the middle, and swung him easily over his shoulder.

"Woah! What are you doing-ow, that hurts, Shizu-chan!~"

"Shut up. It'll be faster this way."

It was a long and painful trip, but Izaya clenched his teeth and tried to ignore the pain in his leg as Shizuo dragged him to a long apartment complex in West Ikebukuro. It was an interesting place, if a little small. Metal stairs led up to door fifty-six, which already had gouges from the various times it had been roughly kicked open.

The place was just as unkempt inside, with furniture strewn around haphazardly, fluorescent lights glaring in his face, reminiscent of one of Kururi's dollhouses. The typical six-tatami-one-bathroom apartment of an unemployed bachelor.

Izaya winced as he was thrown onto the couch. He looked up with eyes already watery with pain, but the smirk remained on his lips. "Being a debt-collector probably doesn't pay a lot, does it? How do you afford those fancy suits? I hope you don't freeload of Kasuka too much."

In response, Shizuo threw a medic kit at his face, which he caught easily. He pulled out a roll of gauze and stood gingerly on one leg to unzip his pants.

"Oi, what are you doing?" Shizuo growled, leaning back against the wall nearby. His eyes were quickly averted.

"Bandaging my leg, what does it look like?" Izaya shot back, letting his pants gather around his ankles. He spent a few seconds observing the gash the bullet had made when it had whizzed past the side of his leg, and then slowly wrapped the bandages around it. As he worked, he realized that the yellowish bruises on his stomach were started to darken. They were going a deep purple.

"Hey, got an extra shirt, Shizu-chan?" He looked up.

Shizuo glared back, and amusedly enough, he was making an effort to keep his eyes above the waistline of Izaya's underwear.

"...you know, if someone walks in here, they'll think we're in an abusive relationship."

Shizuo wordlessly opened his closet, and tossed him a white button-down shirt. Izaya caught it with a smirk. "Do you not have anything more casual?"

"Just wear it," he growled. "And that's from Kasuka, so don't you dare mess it up."

Izaya shrugged it on. "It's kind of sad that your little brother bought you most of the clothes you own. But I guess you're just trying to be more human, right? Well it isn't working out."

And before he could react with his injured leg, his back was pressed harshly to the floor. Shizuo had one hand fisted into the front of his shirt, and his angry face was peering down, not afraid to reveal every speck of hatred held in his eyes.

"Why do you do that?!" He yelled.

"Careful, these walls are thin-"

"You came to _me _to ask for help, and I don't even get a 'thank you' for not pummeling you when I had the chance! This is why I hate you, Orihara Izaya! You say you love humans, but we all fucking hate you!"

Izaya looked up uninterestedly, pulling at the hand half-choking him. For a second, there was a brief lurch of fear that rose, because Shizuo was balanced on top of him just like the attackers had been, and he didn't have a train of thought to lead him elsewhere. But it faded quickly, because he knew that no matter how hard he tried, Heiwajima Shizuo posed no real threat to him.

But it was a legitimate question. Why did he feel the need to taunt him like that? Cutting words just appeared naturally on his tongue whenever Shizuo was around, like they'd been specially engineered to evoke that look of anger. Maybe it was his effort to make Shizuo as interesting as the other humans, even though he was just a monster.

"Hey, get off me. You're hurting my leg. They'll bleed through the bandages, and then you'll have to clean my blood off your floor."

Shizuo stood up almost in disgust, and looked down. His height was intimidating, so far up, but Izaya barely noticed.

"As soon as we find Celty, I'll make sure I never see you in Ikebukuro again," he snarled.

"That's great. Can I use your phone? I know it's late, but I need to cal Kida, and while I'm living here I might as well use your untraceable number."

A small black device was thrown at him. Izaya caught it with a smile.

* * *

Er, review? I do put effort into this, and it's such a small fandom...


	5. Disruption of Normalcy

So I had some extra time and thought I'd work on another chapter of this. If I continue it all the way, it'll probably have around twenty chapters in total.

* * *

**Disruption of Normalcy**

* * *

"Masaomi, your phone is ringing," Anri tapped at Kida's arm, alerting him to the faint buzz. The three of them stood before her apartment, where they'd escorted her home in the late evening.

Kida slipped his phone out of his pocket, flipping it open. He looked at the caller name on the screen. Then he placed the phone back into his pocket. "Probably just some friend asking for something I borrowed. Hell if I'm gonna return stuff." He grinned at Mikado. "Remember that time you loaned me your notes? Yeah, neither do I."

.

"Dammit, he's not picking up." Izaya stared at the phone distastefully. "That brat. If my leg wasn't like this, I'd march on over to his house."

Shizuo stepped out of the single bathroom, freshly out of the shower and in striped nightwear. He retrieved the phone, placed it by his table, and went to bed.

"Shizu-chan, where am I supposed to sleep?~"

Izaya caught the blanket that was thrown at him, and looked around it to see that Shizuo had already turned around on the bed, faking sleep. With a sigh, he pulled it over him on the couch.

He had pieces of everything, but that wasn't enough. He needed more concrete facts about what was happening, what the Awakusu were doing, why the previous leader of the Blue Squares had been wearing a yellow scarf around his arm in that crowd.

He never found the time to actually fall asleep.

.

The next morning was a liquid hell. His eyes burned from tiredness, even though he was familiar enough with insomnia to not mind that much, and Shizu-chan's absolute refusal to talk about anything else was grating on his nerves. Izaya went to occupy the single bathroom after he was out, poking at his dark circles in front of the mirror.

"So?" Shizuo asked when he was out, and they were sitting on the couch of the six-tatami apartment. "Sooner we get this over with, sooner I can turn you in. What's first?"

Izaya raised an eyebrow. "Ever heard of breakfast?"

"Yeah, but you probably haven't." He let his eyes linger over the flea's scrawny form. Finally, he got up, and returned with a protein bar. "Eat and talk. Where's Celty?"

He unwrapped the bar and munched on it slowly. "There's no way of finding her if I just blindly look around. I don't think contacting Namie or Shiki is such a great idea, and this isn't the type of thing I can leave to my followers."

"Ch. So without the Awakusu your entire information network consists of a bunch of teenage girls?"

"And teenage boys~"

"Shut up and go on."

"Well that seems rather hard~" Izaya smirked. "But seriously, I don't have a detailed plan for this." He paused at Shizuo's condescending look. "But it's kind of liberating. Almost like a test of my quick-thinking skills, isn't it?"

"They'd better be real quick, Izaya-_kun_."

But it wasn't as easy as he's made it seem. If he had Celty, he could find a way to amplify the connection she had with her head, somehow. But they took both her head and her body, and left no trace behind that he was aware of. The Awakusu were intelligent. They'd taken him in, after all.

Izaya tapped his fingers against his knee. "I would say it's best to work backwards. If I've got you as a pawn to work with, then I can target the gang they're using directly; the ones that wear the scarves and the bandannas, and get the info out of them. I'd have to use Kida to draw out Aoba, and then I can drill that kid for the name of who he works for. There isn't anyone in the Awakusu I don't know, after all."

.

"Hey, Masaomi, I think that new supply teacher has been bugging Anri," Mikado confessed semi-seriously. Beside him, Anri reddened.

Kida gave her a peeved look as they walked to school. "I'm not surprised. She could be a total picture-girl for the sensei-student fetish." He grinned. "They all love a nerdy girl in glasses, right?"

"That's… I'm not into…"

"Aww, you don't need to be embarrassed," he slung an arm over her shoulder. "It's not like I'll ever let them near you. You can count on me, babe."

"Um… I'm the one with the legendary sword, Masaomi-kun," she replied with a small smile.

Kida made a face at her. "Come on, lemme keep some of my ego!" He glanced over at Masaomi. "Hey, aren't you ever mad at me when I hit on your girlfriend? What kind of guy are you?"

"A normal one," he replied. "I know for a fact that she'll never be into you."

"Harsh, that's _harsh, _man!"

The cars droned by down the streets, and the city had only just woken up. Sometimes, it seemed like Ikebukuro was a living thing that ingested the efforts of thousands of human beings and spat out clouds of grey smoke in return. But they all loved it for that, for it's uniqueness. It was unlike any other city, and there was a sense of it being a rather small world despite everything.

The three of them left the main streets and walked through the park, a detour of their shortcut route that they still took even though the previous construction areas had been cleared. It made them late almost every day but Kida insisted on it.

It was part of his normal life.

"Hey wait." Mikado paused mid-step beside him, and pointed to the edge of the green park, where an old stone fountain had been erected centuries ago. "Isn't that…?"

Anri adjusted her glasses. "Yes, it is." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Why is Izaya-san here?"

Kida felt something raise an ugly head in the pit of his stomach as he turned to see Orihara Izaya leaning back against the fountain, dressed in his black pants and a curiously plain white dress-shirt. The temporary satisfaction faded as Izaya waved him over, making it clear that he didn't have a choice on whether to reply. But Mikado was the one that went forward, leading the two of them to their shared enemy.

That was when they noticed another presence, standing farther down the fountain's stone rim, tapping one foot against the grass.

"Ah!" Kida grabbed Mikado and Anri's arms, pulling them back. "Shizuo's there! We gotta get out of here before we're dragged into something!"

"No worries," Izaya called out. "Let's just say we're in a temporary truce, or something. I just need to talk to you, Kida-kun~"

"Temporary truce my ass," Shizuo muttered. "I'll fucking kill him the moment this is over."

Kida scratched his head sheepishly. "Um, I'd love to talk, but we classes start in a few minutes. We should probably be going." He made to turn.

Within seconds, there was a hand on his arm, and he turned to see Izaya's smirk. "Kida-kun, I'm sure you can miss a day of class. Or ten. See, there's something I need you to do for me…"

* * *

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